“The ‘Argus’ was tolerably cut up in her hull. Both her lower masts were wounded, although not badly, and her fore-shrouds on one side nearly all destroyed; but like the ‘Chesapeake,’ the ‘Argus’ had no spar shot away. Of her carronades several were disabled. She lost in the action six seamen killed; her commander, two midshipmen, the carpenter, and three seamen mortally, her first lieutenant and five seamen severely, and eight others slightly wounded,--total twenty-four; chiefly, if not wholly by the cannon-shot of the ‘Pelican.’”[426] The “Pelican” lost seven men killed or wounded, chiefly by musketry. On both sides the battle showed little skill with the guns; but perhaps the “Pelican,” considering her undisputed superiority during half the combat, showed even less than the “Argus.” As in the “Chesapeake’s” battle, the discredit of the defeated ship lay in surrender to boarders. Two such defeats were calculated to shake confidence in the American navy. That Allen should have been beaten in gunnery was the more strange, because his training with the guns gave him his chief credit with Decatur. Watson, the second lieutenant of the “Argus,” attributed the defeat to the fatigue of his crew. Whatever was the immediate cause, no one could doubt that both the “Chesapeake” and “Argus” were sacrificed to the over-confidence of their commanders. CHAPTER XIII. THE people of the Atlantic coast felt the loss of the “Chesapeake” none too keenly. Other nations had a history to support them in moments of mortification, or had learned by centuries of experience to accept turns of fortune as the fate of war. The American of the sea-coast was not only sensitive and anxious, but he also saw with singular clearness the bearing of every disaster, and did not see with equal distinctness the general drift of success. The loss of the “Chesapeake” was a terrible disaster, not merely because it announced the quick recovery of England’s pride and power from a momentary shock, but also because it threatened to take away the single object of American enthusiasm which redeemed shortcomings elsewhere. After the loss of the “Chesapeake,” no American frigate was allowed the opportunity to fight with an equal enemy. The British frigates, ordered to cruise in company, gave the Americans no chance to renew their triumphs of 1812.